Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Wednesday's Walk Down Memory Lane

Lynette Kraft has lots of great ideas for blogging. Check her out by either clicking on the "Wednesday's Walk" button on my side bar or by clicking the link to her blog, also on my side bar. Wednesday's walk is where you blog about a memory you have and want to share with others.

Take a look at these four beautiful women and darling child in the picture below.

You may be asking yourself: Who are these lovely ladies? Why are they at the beach? They are not walking, so how can this be a walk down memory lane? I will answer all these questions and more by the end of the story.

These lovely ladies are, from left to right: Mary Beth (me), Carol B., Carol D., Bianca (Jari's child) and Jari S. All four of us, along with 20 other students, spent our Junior year of college in Lima, Peru through the Study Abroad Program of Indiana University. We were in Lima from July 1983 to July 1984. Now don't start counting the years to see how old we are! This picture was taken in 1997 at Carol D.'s parent's beach house near St. Augustine Fl. We spent the New Year's holiday there as a mini-reunion of the Lima class of 83-84. Unfortunately, only the four of us could make it. Others had been invited, but for one reason or another were not able to come. But we four had a great time ringing in 1997 and remembering all the fun times from Lima, adventures to other South American countries during our stay, and just having a great time.

Back in 1997, I was still single. I hadn't even met my husband at that time. I worked in the IT department of a paging company called PageMart. Do people even carry pagers anymore? It was a totally different time in my life with very different priorities than now. The other person in the picture that I still keep in touch with, Carol D., (she sent me the photo) was living in California and single in 1997. She is now married, has a child and lives in Sweden. A lot can happen in 12 years.

This was a walk to remember within a walk to remember. I was looking back at a picture from 1997, thinking of how we all were back then. And the whole purpose of getting together in 1997 was to look back to 1983-4.